About Us HTF After the Earthquake
May 26, 2010
Dear Friends of Haiti and HTF,
A small team of us recently returned from a trip to Haiti. Although I am humbled by the collective effort and successes of the HTF community and our partners, I wish that I could report long term good news for Haiti. This report will first give some observations with some commentary and then report on exactly what HTF is now doing. First, the observations:
· A couple of months ago on the HTF website, I quoted my son who said, “The cavalry did not come, or they sent the wrong cavalry.” That is still the case four and a half months post- quake. $11.5 billion in post-earthquake reconstruction relief has been promised, but there is not one bulldozer, one piece of demolition equipment, dump trucks, or barges ready to take rubble and drop it to the bottom of the deep sea. There is absolutely no evidence of any international coordinated effort – other than hand-dismantling by our HTF teams at St. Joseph’s Home for Boys and some other cash for work programs in the country – to clear out and rebuild.
· There is devastation everywhere at the epicenter and surrounding areas. There are still buildings that are very dangerous. One building, right in front of our eyes, collapsed into the road seventy-five feet down the street from the Tetkole open center in Jacmel, and took power lines with it. Masses of people are still living in tents. Many of the camps appear to be well laid out, but many are also so primitive. Hell would be an improvement over some of the situations we saw in Carrefour.
· People are living in tents for three reasons; 1) the home they owned was destroyed or is un-inhabitable; 2) the home they rented no longer exists; or 3) they are afraid to sleep inside. The government is telling people that it is not safe to go inside. How long will this situation continue?
· As longs as there is food and water delivered to the tent camps every two weeks, the people are not going to be motivated to try to move beyond life in a tent.
· Every time food and water is distributed as charity, it undermines Haitian people with gardens and markets and works in what was already a fragile economy before the earthquake hit.
· Hurricane season begins soon. Haiti is more fragile and exposed than ever.
· There is widespread awareness of multiple NGOs now with their foreign staff in Haiti. Some of their compounds seem like an embassy. You see lots of new expensive SUVs on the streets. They are in the big time poverty business and speak of people in need as “market share” and funds provided for relief as “revenue sources.” Being in the poverty business, they compete against other NGOs for market share and revenue. There seems to be little evidence of any kind of cooperative effort among the largest NGOs. They are all seemingly trying to trump each other in every locale in Haiti. The impression that one gets is that they are more about advancing their own reputations rather than truly advancing Haitians. Their staffs that they deployed to Haiti came from other countries and have little or no experience in Haiti.
· We had a situation in which one of the largest international NGOs actually tried to confiscate tents originally laid out for a center for disabled children because they deemed that another situation needed the tents more.
· Certain charities that received “emergency relief” funding through their websites are actually camping on a lot of the money. For example, one charity that promotes relief for their orphanage that was destroyed in Haiti received over $1,000,000 in donations and yet is camping on almost all of the money in a power struggle with the people they claim to be serving.
· Many religious relief agencies who rushed to aid Haiti had no real grassroots network in Haiti and chose to contract with other organizations. A conservative estimate is that at least 30% of all humanitarian aid dumped into Haiti did not reach those who needed it or was confiscated by opportunistic people. Admittedly, there has been a lot of arrogance by the response arms of religious bodies who charged ahead without trying to learn or collaborate with those who actually could help them be more effective.
· Because of the presence and obvious expense of the NGOs in Haiti, there is now a growing resentment among the Haitians. Any Caucasian going to Haiti needs to be aware that there is the assumption that the $11.5 billion is being siphoned off by all the NGOs and their expensive and privileged staff.
· We saw the tail end of an anti-Preval demonstration – burning tires, slogans, and graffiti - in Port-au-Prince.
· Almost all of the foreign medical teams are gone. Jacmel and Cayes Jacmel together had five foreign doctors there (MsF). The emergency medical phase is over. What is needed going forward is rehab for all of the traumatic surgeries.
· Over its history Haiti has always had to adjust to a “new normal” after some sort of crisis. In every case, the “new normal” was an adjustment downward, not upward. If the cavalry does not come and if there is no collective radically new and shared approach that truly has a new infrastructure and outcomes of sustainability and dignity for the people of Haiti, the future is dire.
· I could say more, but in summary, I have never seen a group of people with their backs collectively against the walls as our brothers and sisters in Haiti are now.
GOING FORWARD
The repeated failed approaches of trying to transform a fragile state through foreign aid are again being put forward in Haiti. In modern history, no country has ever been transformed by the foreign aid/NGO approach. All of the economists at the Miami Sustainable Haiti Conference in March warned of taking this approach in Haiti. Based upon impressions from a dinner conversation with a US diplomat while we were there, Haiti can expect nothing new or creative. Despite the use of rhetoric about sustainability and empowering Haitians, the actual game plan that appears to be unfolding actually does none of that. Some things that have to happen right now:
· There has to be a paradigm shift from a “charity” mindset to a “solidarity” mindset. Charity does more harm than good. Charity is top-down. Charity maintains dependency cycles and strips away dignity. Charity makes the exchange about the feel-good needs of the donor rather than the empowerment of the Haitians.
· There has to be a belief in the Haitian people to determine and find their way to a new future. They do not need charity; they need empowerment. It is a very difficult situation when there are top officials, even in our own embassy, who do not respect Haitians and believe that they must have “white” people in charge.
· People who want to rush down to Haiti on a “mission trip” have to ask themselves, “Whose need am I really meeting? Mine or theirs?”
· Doctors who want to continue to come to Haiti need to have a great reason. Certainly some of Haiti’s doctors welcome people to come and walk alongside them to make them better, but every time a doctor goes uninvited into an area served by a Haitian doctor, the Haitian doctor is denied his or her livelihood.
· Solidarity organizations like HTF cannot have the critical needs of moving Haiti forward by having attention diverted because well meaning groups want to come to Haiti to “do something.”
· At this point when someone asks me what they can do, unless they have a specific skill set that they are ready to deploy and multiply among Haitians, the best thing that one can do is to write a check so that HTF can do what we are already doing to create a future of sustainability, hope, and dignity for the children of Haiti.
As I write this report, HTF is continuing to do the things that have served out partners and made us a highly effective partner. We are looking for leverage points where we can multiply our grassroots approach. Our top priority is to see that our current partners get what they need from us. We are proud and inspired by all of them. Beyond that we are looking at several initiatives that hold great promise to advance the mission of HTF in solidarity with our Haitian partners.
SPECIFIC PROJECTS IN THE VISIONING STAGE
We are looking at several initiatives related to our current partners. In an effort to be fully transparent with all our constituency, two of them are worthy of mentioning:
1. Working with two other partners (Nebraska and Wisconsin based) we are envisioning a project on the property at Trinity house. This envisioned center will serve as a prototype that can be replicated elsewhere in Haiti. It would be a center where teams can come to Haiti not to do a traditional mission trip but to train, empower, and walk alongside Haitians in the areas of medical and dental, mechanics, coffee processing, and more. The site itself would have job-producing and income producing enterprises like the coffee project and mechanic’s school. Right now we are putting together a shared mission statement and set of guiding principles on which we can all agree. Because of the importance of this project, the leadership team of HTF will need to have widespread conversation beyond the team and to our constituents so that we are all on the same page.
2. In terms of more conversation needed, this second initiative will require thoughtful dialogue, but it is being laid out here in its budding state. We are thinking about an HTF leadership and conference center. (This name does not fully capture the vision, but at the moment it is the best I can do!) We are looking at the merits – and there are many – of having a center where small groups can come and stay in Haiti, where we can bring in experts in differing professional fields to teach and mentor Haitians, and where professional Haitians can come and receive training and empowerment to be better, whether they are teachers, IT people, farmers, mechanics, accountants or what not. We are also entertaining the idea that on the site we could host a Henry Schein store. Schein does not have a presence in Haiti, and a win-win outcome would be for us to partner with Schein for them to both fund and build the facility with our having ancillary benefits. Henry Schein is the largest medical equipment and supply vendor in the world. Having them headquartered with HTF would create all kinds of traffic to us. Whatever we build would also become a proto-type of a sustainable, solar powered, green and earthquake/hurricane protected facility. Again, this is very preliminary.
OTHER THINGS YOU MAY WANT TO KNOW
A. Our 120 CLM clients in the Boukan Kare area of Plateau Central, save three families that have had some extraordinary difficulties, are all scheduled to graduate in December of this year.
B. H.E.L.P. will have 150 college students in its program this fall, and HTF continues to be a premier financial investor. Right now H.E.L.P is taking up shop in a temporary situation near their office that was damaged. At the temporary facility, 42 students plus Garry Delice are sleeping there and sharing one bathroom.
C. We currently have 215 children in our sponsorship support program. 57 are still unsponsored, and we are working to get some of their missing bios completed.
D. HTF has nearly $175,000 ready to deploy towards the reconstruction of the destroyed homes within the St. Joseph’s “family” – the home at 91 Delmas and the Wings facility in Fermathe.
E. The cosmetic structural damage to Trinity House has been repaired with HTF funding.
F. PAZAPA is trying to reopen on a piece of land near the airport using donated tents as facilities right now. When we left, Save the Children was threatening to remove the tents over a technical misunderstanding, but we have successfully intervened. We are waiting to hear what they may need from us. PLAN Haiti and PLAN Canada have indicated a desire to fund the construction. Right now HTF is gathering specifications so that we can fund an inverter system for their current electrical needs.
G. All the TETKOLE facilities are okay now post-quake. We continue to have 110 children in our TETKOLE initiative in Jacmel.
H. Massive amounts of medical supplies recently received by a joint effort from many donors in the US, were unloaded by HTF teams on a barge that arrived in Jacmel last month. After conversation last week with the Director General of the SE/Jacmel Health Department, HTF is getting them all delivered to the outlying villages of the region – Cayes Jacmel, Marigot, Bainet, Cote de fer, Belle Anse, Gran Gosier, and Ans Pitres. If you look at a map of Haiti you can see the remote nature of most of these villages.
I. We also have two large shelters donated to us that were on a large barge that arrived in April. We plan to have one erected for a local co-op for rehab and the other at PAZAPA.
J. We met with the Director of Hospital St. Michel in Jacmel and have pledged our ongoing support for him. We have donated to them an X-Ray piece of equipment as well as an anesthesiology machine, which we received gratis by our networks here.
K. An estimate of the donated medical supplies, equipment, transport, support and in-kind cost of all medical staff for the emergency operation in Jacmel and Cayes Jacmel, led by HTF, is $3.5 million.
L. HTF has received a number of gifts designated for use with the Team Ange effort. Among other things, we have been arranging for food for the families of those airlifted to the US and for transport back to Haiti for those now able to go. In total, we airlifted 14 critically injured people out of Haiti.
M. On a Wednesday morning we led a leadership development event for the five member leadership team of the St. Joseph’s Family – Jacky Asse, Bill Nathan, Melchi Petit-Homme, Walnes Cangas, and Luckner Fond-Rose (Maya). This will be a regular offering of my trips to Haiti. Each of the five is connected with an HTF mentor – Chad Johnson, Brian Rindels, Patrick Sutton, Frank Ditore, and me.
N. We transported to Haiti a proto-type, built by Frank Ditore, which can be manufactured on a larger scale in Haiti for coffee roasting for the coffee project. Frank Ditore is the HTF liaison with Maya for the coffee project.
O. In cooperation with Michael and the St. Joe’s leadership team, an HTF team, consisting of youth and their leaders from Georgia and Colorado, will be putting on a summer camp at Trinity House, July 5-9. Participants in the camp will be the LsT kids, the restavek children, kids in Tetkole, and a few residents from Wings.
P. Speaking of travel to Haiti. New leadership team members, Melissa Jewell and Chad Johnson, are taking over the role of coordinating such trips. We need to think carefully about such trips going forward. There are building safety issues that will need to be considered, not to mention lodging and food. Also needing consideration is the extent that groups can expect HTF staff and people in Haiti to be available to them. We realize that the interest in Haiti is high right now and there is a rush to want to go there. Look for future communication, after a late-July HTF leadership team gathering, on the landscape of future trips.
I am personally grateful for the countless people who have given money, prayed for Haiti, held events on behalf of HTF or Haiti, and who taken the time to express gratitude for the work of HTF. I am certainly grateful to all of you, and humbled by it all. The earthquake rocked our world, but God is good. HTF is continuing to be driven by the Spirit so that we can together dream of a future of hope, sustainability, and dignity for the children of Haiti.
Pou tout moun kapab gen lavi!
Rick Barger
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Easter 2010
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Easter 2010
Two weeks ago, the former Prime Minister of Haiti, Michèle Duvivier Pierre-Louis, stood before those of us gathered in Miami for the Sustainable Haiti Conference and described the devastation from the January 12th earthquake in Haiti as “unprecedented.” The toll includes 300,000 believed to be dead, more than 400,000 children left orphaned, 1,000,000 left homeless, and without access to clean water or decent sanitation facilities. The sum of the human and material loss, grief, and ongoing stress and disorientation from the trauma are hard to imagine.
Because of your generous support and HTF’s grassroots network, we have been able to…
- provide immediate humanitarian aid on the ground, initially transporting food, water, tarps, and basic medical supplies by boat from the Dominican Republic into Jacmel;
- provide emergency cash for our partners all over Haiti as they searched and accounted for all of their people;
- provide kitchens and food distribution centers in Jacmel;set up a fully operational hospital in Jacmel, recruited medical professionals who became known as “Team Ange” (team angels), who performed 10-15 critical surgeries every day in the first weeks following the earthquake and continues to see and treat some 300 patients every day, saving limbs and lives;
- establish by air and sea a non-stop supply chain of critically needed medical supplies and equipment, reserve medical staff, and vaccinations for tens of thousands at risk in makeshift refugee camps;
- put our partners together to create cooperation and synergy for a coordinated response; and,
- begin the process of rebuilding broken lives, dreams, and facilities.
Much lies ahead for us as we move from “emergency response” to “recovery response.” In addition to the basic human needs of shelter and clean water, our focus will turn toward attention to education, child welfare, and the health of all those physically and mentally traumatized, in addition to developing opportunities that will provide long-term jobs and economic stability for Haiti.
We continue to need your help. Your prayers and continued financial support will enable us to raise our brothers and sisters from the rubble of Haiti to a future much closer to our mission of hope, sustainability, and dignity. We will not stop until all have life!
During this Easter season when we celebrate resurrection as the promise for us all, will you please help us raise up the children of Haiti? Will you please make a gift today?
Rick Barger, HTF Founder and Executive Director
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Patients treated by Team Ange
A life and limb saved.
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| Title | Date | Options | |
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St. Joseph's Work Trips | 04/27/2010 |
 
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Resurrection From the Rubble | 04/23/2010 |
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St. Joseph's Family | 10/09/2009 |
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St. Joseph's Brochure | 10/09/2009 |
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